Unfiltered Story #241005

One thing that always surprises me about haulage and deliveries in particular is people that are displeased or outright annoyed by having something delivered to them

Recently I had a simple 1 pallet delivery in a town less than 10 miles from my home depot. The paperwork gave the street name and number (14) and a company name. I found the address with no issue. The item in question was a car engine, number 14 on this street was clearly a residential address however right next to it was a commercial garage and the house clearly had a side door that exited into the yard of this property.

I therefore made the assumption that this was probably the right place and decided to try the house. The door bell brought a 30 something guy to the door in boxers and a vest.

Me: Hi there sorry to bother you, I’m after [name of company] and they gave #14 as the delivery address, would this be you?

Guy: No this is a house, are you blind? They start at 9.

He then forcefully slams the door in my face.

Given its literally 8:59am at this point I shrug it off and get back into my wagon for the 1 minute until whoever I’m supposed to be waiting for shows up. 9 comes and goes and at 9:15 I ring my depot to say theres no one here and I need to be moved on, and also pass on info about the guy in case anyone else delivers here at a later date. As I’m making the phonecall the guy from the house leaves (still in boxers and a vest) and gets into a car thats currently accross the garages gate, drives 20 yards down the road, walks back and OPENS THE GATE and then walks to me in the wagon and full on punches the door to get my attention.

Guy (shouting through the door): PALLET!!

My office hear this through the phone and ask me whats going on, I briefly summerise what the hell this guy is doing and my office tells me to refuse delivery and leave. I roll down the window a sliver so he can hear me.

Me: Due to your attitude and threatening behaviour we are refusing delivery, please consider not screaming at the delivery driver next time.

He screams abuse at me and tries to open my door but I’ve long since locked it so he cant get in, he continues to scream as I turn the corner and drive off, I carry on with my day a bit shaken but otherwise ok. When I get back to my depot that afternoon I ask my supervisor what happened with the guy after I left.

She tells me that he rang the office screaming and was told in no uncertain terms that we would not be delivering his item due to his threatening behaviour and if he wanted it he could arrange for delivery out of his own pocket with another carrier within 14 days or we would return it to sender, we also blacklisted him so we’d never have to deal with him again, no one ever came for the engine and we shipped it back to the sender once the 14 days were up.

I just dont get why this guy was so mad, clearly this guy either owned or was involved with this garage, so obviously this pallet was ordered by him or his coworkers and obviously they needed it because you dont impulse buy a complete car engine, so why was he so angry about it all? I get plenty of people that are delighted to get their new garden furniture, TV, furniture etc and these people that treat me like I’ve delivered half a ton of horse dung to them just baffle me.